Dr. McBeth studies DNA repair processes and their role in environmental adaptation of Pseudomonas bacteria. DNA repair genes from the biodegradative plasmid CAM-OCT have been cloned on a 20kb DNA fragment. Expression of the cloned genes in both Pseudomonas bacteria and E.coli have been completed. Current efforts are aimed at identification of the numbers of genes on the 20 kb fragment and subcloning the relevant gene(s).